Cliché
by Medea Arduinna
Summary: A story full of clichés, lovers and saying goodbye. PG-13 for some language.


**Cliché**

The lights at the end of the streets threw shadows into play, which didn't matter for him, for that was where he'd been most of his life. She frowned as she watching him exhale, a puff of cigarette smoke lingering in front of him before being whipped away in the wind. So he'd taken up smoking, but she wasn't surprised in the least. Stuffing her hands in her cloak pockets for added warmth in the chilly November night, and she began making her way over to him. The sound of her heels on the cobblestone must have jarred him out of his memories or whatever he was brooding on, and his eyes met hers in a silver flash.

"Well, aren't you the cliché?" she remarked, her first words to him in over four years. "Leaning against a bar building, smoking a fag, your cloak shrouding yourself _in_ yourself."

"Like you aren't that clichéd yourself, with your own cloak and the way that piece of hair is falling over your eyes." She arched an eyebrow. "You know, you're the only woman to ever challenge me - verbally as well as physically. It's kind of sexy, really." His eyes ran over her, taking in the hair that fell just past her shoulders in soft, large curls, and the generous curves that even her cloak couldn't hide, and the long legs ended in heel-clad feet.

"Because that's not obvious," she scoffed. "I'm not blind."

"Why don't you just admit you liked every bit of it? While you think you may have changed over these months, these _years_, the truth is, you haven't. I see that look in your eyes - I _know_ that look," he took another drag of his cigarette before she took it from his long, slim fingers and crushed it on the street with her toe.

"Don't try to fool yourself into being something you're not. You're not a golden, perfect boy, but you sure aren't this darkly poetic."

"Is 'darkly' even a word?"

"Does it really _matter_? I mean, does it _matter_ what I'm wearing if you've seen everything anyway? Does it _matter_ I've not changed if you didn't have any problems when we left each other? Does it _matter_ that I still love you? Does any of this _matter_ to you?"

"Don't talk like that, you know nothing of love." He looked away and she felt her spine stiffen, her heart grow cold as a bitter wind whipped through the air.

"I know enough to know love's not always perfect balances and hanging all over each other when you're together. The other person isn't perfect, they are far from it, but you find yourself loving them anyway. It can make you... or it can break you. And the worst part is, you have no say in the matter." She began to do what she'd been fighting the entire time - she began to cry. Granted, they were silent tears, slipping down her cheeks like diamonds, glittering in the moonlit night. She knew he was watching her now, and she furiously wiped away the tears with the backs of her heands. "Forget it all, I should have never come here."

"Then why did you?"

"I heard a rumor you were back in town and had to see for myself. A lot of bloody good it did." She snorted derisively. "If I'd had my way I never would have fallen in love with you. You're the last person on earth I wanted to be in love with but at the same time you're the only person that makes sense in my life now." She pinched the bridge of her nose.

"Women have a much deeper connection than men do when it comes to sex. Suddenly it can become much more, but is it really love?"

"Goddammit, don't you get it? I fell in love with you one year, three months, and eight days after we separated. I'm pretty sure it had nothing to do with the sex." He started to reach in his pocket but she grabbed his arm.

"Don't you dare -"

"Relax, it's not another cigarette," he said and instead pulled out a necklace. Made of silver, the locket hung on an equally-as-delicate silver chain, and sported an emerald jewel. Ivy was engraved around the edge of it. He pressed it into her palm and closed her fingers around it.

"I never gave it to you and it hasn't left this pocket since. It's yours. Keep it." She opened her hand to look at it again.

"The colors... you'll always be true to them, won't you?" Her voice was thick with more tears.

"That's why I have to say goodbye." He leaned over, pressed his lips to hers for a moment, and when she opened her eyes, he was gone.

"Goodbye," she whispered to wind, put on the necklace, and started back the way she came. She never looked back.


End file.
